Eddie Vedder and Stephen Marley have shared new covers of two Neil Young classics from “Harvest” for an upcoming tribute album benefitting the Bridge School.
While “Rockin’ in the Free World” has become a Pearl Jam live staple, for his contribution, Vedder covered “The Needle and The Damage Done,” Young’s devastating 1972 song about heroin addiction. The Pearl Jam frontman plays the cover pretty straight (not that that’s a bad thing), with just acoustic guitar accompaniment and a vocal performance that’s distinctly reminiscent of Young’s soft, quivering tenor.
Marley, meanwhile, has turned in a reggae-infused rendition of “Old Man,” injecting Young’s ode to the caretaker of the Northern California ranch he purchased in the early Seventies with an atmospheric rocksteady energy.
Vedder’s “The Needle and the Damage Done” and Marley’s “Old Man” mark the third and fourth offerings from from “Heart of Gold: The Songs of Neil Young”, following, Courtney Barnett’s rendition of “Lotta Love” and Chris Pierce’s interpretation of “Southern Man.”
The upcoming compilation will also feature contributions from Fiona Apple, Mumford & Sons, Brandi Carlile, Sharon Van Etten, Lumineers, Steve Earle, and the Doobie Brothers with Allison Russell. Artists for volume two haven’t been announced yet.
Proceeds from “Heart of Gold” will benefit the Bridge School, which Young’s late ex-wife Pegi co-founded to help individuals with severe speech and physical impairments.
“Heart of Gold” arrives April 25th, and it’s set to be the first volume of a two-album project.
“Nothing Sticks” is a bold leap forward for bass-guitar virtuoso and evocative lyricist Pictoria Vark. Her dynamic studio album explores impermanence through intricate arrangements and compelling narratives, blending chamber pop, sludge-metal intensity, and breezy acoustic moments. Co-produced with Gavin Caine and Bradford Krieger, the record features an all-star cast of musicians and innovative production techniques. With its fearless songwriting and sonic depth, “Nothing Sticks” is a testament to Victoria Park’s singular voice and her evolving artistry.
Pictoria Vark is the spoonerism alias of the young singer-songwriter Victoria Park, who turned heads with her 2022 debut album “The Parts I Dread”. She aims even higher on her excellent new album release “Nothing Sticks” — it’s the perfect road-trip indie-rock album you didn’t realize you deserved, full of soft-spoken guitar haze and emotional travelogues.
The album unfolds like the journal of a wandering young heart who rambles from town to town, from feeling to feeling, but without feeling connected anywhere. As she sings in the witty “San Diego,” “I’m wherever I go.”
Vark grew up in New Jersey as a suburban emo kid, picking up the bass because she got obsessed with Carol Kaye’s playing on the Beach Boys’ classic “Pet Sounds“. She still writes her songs on bass, giving them a spacious, reflective tone. She crafted her own bedroom-pop style, sounding at first like a shy wallflower learning to speak up. But she’s full of sly wit and matter-of-fact candor.
She goes deep into 20-something ennui with “I Sing What I See,” confessing, “I put my money on the wrong things/Ambulances and my broken strings/Or a thought that’s stupidly clinging.”
Most of these songs take place in the indie-rock milieu, where your home is whatever floor you’re crashing on tonight, your friends are the blank faces you see staring at the gig, and your past is whatever hungover memories you manage to hold on to. In “I Pushed It Down,” Vark laments “trying to make it in those bands, waiting for someone to understand.”
The conceit works brilliantly in gems like “We’re Musicians” (“we’re not actors”) and “Other Things,” where she uses the indie-rock hustle as her metaphor for romantic struggles. As she sings, “Every verse becomes a chorus/With each subsequent performance/I know you like I know the routine/I miss you most when you’re next to me.” She makes the day-to-day chaos of playing in the band sound like the mirror image for anybody’s youthful upheavals, in the great tradition of the Replacements’ “Left of the Dial,” the White Stripes’ “Little Room,”.
She stretches out on guitar for “Other Things” and “San Diego,” along with her usual bass. The fantastic “Lucky Superstar” is full of shoegaze guitar, with a Smashing Pumpkins-style sense of rock grandeur, as she sings about taking aim at somebody’s heart, with sly lines like “I could never hurt you/Unless I really tried.” “San Diego” she tops it with “I blacked out singing this.”
As the title suggests, “Nothing Sticks” is full of songs where she faces up to how transient youth is, chasing moments of romance or inspiration that get her hopes up for a minute or two, then fizzle out. As she sings bluntly in “We’re Musicians,” “Thank god for good days in bad luck/The times when both are getting fucked.” In these songs, you can hear her wonder if she’ll ever find her places to belong, or whether she’s just kidding herself. But when the songs are this great, Vark makes you hope she keeps on searching — and turns all her heartache into an adventure worth joining.
A transformative journey, the album promises to captivate and resonate.
Pictoria Vark – ‘Nothing Sticks’ out March 21st, 2025
Mike Scott and Brother Paul have created a video to accompany a newly-discovered Waterboys studio recording of Woody Guthrie’s classic song, “This Land Is Your Land”, recorded at Spiddal House, Ireland in 1988. The video shows great souls, activists and artists of the USA, individuals who’ve inspired millions of peoples’ love for the country – and on this auspicious day we wish to celebrate them. The song itself will be included on a double album of previously lost “Fisherman’s Blues” recordings scheduled for Spring 2026 release.
newly-discovered recording by The Waterboys (1988), copyright Blue Raincoat Music. Song composed by Woody Guthrie,
The Waterboys have recruited Fiona Apple as the narrator of their latest single “Letter From an Unknown Girlfriend”. The record, written by Mike Scott & performed by Fiona , will appear on the forthcoming Waterboys concept album ‘Life, Death & Dennis Hopper’, due out April 4th.
Fiona appears among a staked slate of guest stars on the album. Others include Bruce Springsteen (“TenYears Gone”), Steve Earle (“Kansas”), British artist Barny Fletcher (“The Tourist”) & Nashville singer Anana Kaye (“Katherine”). Sugarfoot, Patti Palladin & The Go-Go’s Kathy Valentine also make guest appearances.
“Letter From an Unknown Girlfriend” follows the previous singles “Hopper’s On Top (Genius),” “Andy (A Guy Like You)” and “I Don’t Know How I Made It” with Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith.
“The arc of his life was the story of our times,” Scott said about Dennis Hopper in a statement. “It begins in his childhood, ends the morning after his death, & I get to say a whole lot along the way, not just about Dennis, but about the whole strange adventure of being a human soul on planet Earth.”
Produced by Mike & the band’s Famous James & Brother Paul, ‘Life, Death & Dennis Hopper’ marks The Waterboys’ first album since 2022’s ‘All Souls Hill’.
Deacon Blue will release their 12th studio album, “The Great Western Road“, on the 21st March.
2025 marks 40 years since the formation of Deacon Blue and we’re told that “The Great Western Road” will reflect “the journey the band has taken” and be “honest to the age and experience” that the band share. Frontman Ricky Ross says the album is “the next part of the adventure” which remains “as exciting now as it was back in 1988”.
“The Great Western Road” sees Ross, and guitarist Gregor Philp, on production duties, having produced the band’s last studio album. The album was recorded by Matt Butler, who worked with the band on their classic debut album “Raintown”.
The 12-track album is available on vinyl, CD and cassette, although the cassette is an exclusive on the official Deacon Blue shop, which also has signed bundles. On vinyl, “The Great Western Road” is available in a number of coloured pressings including transparent blue and an official shop white marble pressing.
Hey everyone! Just me again letting you know my new EP, “Northern Star” is out now wherever you get your music! I really really hope you love these songs. They started with writing “Go Be Free” for the movie Last Breath, and myself and Liz Horsman were so inspired by all the things that spilled out when writing that we wrote a whole EP. For me it’s about how we are connected with nature and that life is a circle, but I hope you find your own messages in there somewhere.
My EP ‘Northern Star’ is officially yours and “Little Light” is the final single from it. This video includes all the little lights of ours.
I wrote the last track with the one and only best person ever Alfie and we filmed a little visualiser that you can watch on youtube now!
British duo Flyte release LA-inspired single ‘Emily and Me’, written during a 2022 California trip between tour dates. Flyte have shared their new single ‘Emily and Me’, marking their second release of 2025 following last month’s ‘I’m Not There’.
The British duo, comprising Will Taylor and Nick Hill, recorded the track during an intensive two-month writing period in the West Country with BRIT Award-winning producer Ethan Johns, known for his work with Paul McCartney, Ray Lamontagne, and Laura Marling.
“Emily and Me” is a postcard from LA to London from two passively stoned Englishmen driving round in our friend Emily’s Subaru,” Taylor explains. “We wrote the song back in the summer 2022 on a break between touring to see people and write songs in California. There had been fires that year but nothing like what happened this January. A feeling was hanging in the air during that visit, something like bliss but also that a storm might be brewing.”
Alongside their own releases, the pair have been writing for other artists including Holly Humberstone and Sigrid, while expanding their songwriting workshops to include digital experiences for international participants. Their previous collaborators include Laura Marling, Billie Marten, Madison Cunningham, Bombay Bicycle Club, The Staves, and Florence Pugh.
Various artists “PROG & PSYCH Think I’m Going Weird” (2021 UK/EU limited edition Five Cd set – A definitive overview of the British psychedelic scene, this epic five-CD/book set that includes more than 50 minutes of previously unreleased music from the halcyon period 1966-68. Including the major acts of the era The Who, Traffic, Small Faces, The Move, Procol Harum, Incredible String Band, Family, Crazy World of Arthur Brown etc, the set features many bands who also played London’s underground dungeons during the Summer Of Love.
Perhaps most enticingly of all, the collection includes a number of hitherto-unknown recordings by bands who are only now gaining their first public exposure including Eyes Of Blond, Tinsel Arcade, Crystal Ship [whose contribution features lyrics from Pete Brown] and the semi-mythical 117, such a legendary name from the era’s handbills and posters that they even had a UK psych fanzine named after them in the ‘90s.
The five discs are housed within the 60-page A5 book format with 25,000-word track-by-track annotation with some extraordinary and rare photos and memorabilia!)
Grapefruit Records landmark 100th release! “Think I’m Going Weird: Original Artefacts From The British Psychedelic Scene 1966-68” A definitive overview of the British psychedelic scene, an epic five-CD/book set that includes more than 50 minutes of previously unreleased music from the halcyon period 1966-68
After a decade making the most of improvised recording spaces set in warehouses, trailers and lofts, Japanese Breakfast’s fourth album, “For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)”, marks the band’s first proper studio release. Produced by Grammy Award winner Blake Mills, the record sees front-woman and songwriter Michelle Zauner pull back from the bright extroversion that defined its predecessor “Jubilee” to examine the darker waves that roil within, the moody, fecund field of melancholy, long held to be the psychic state of poets on the verge of inspiration. The result is an artistic statement of purpose: a mature, intricate, contemplative work that conjures the romantic thrill of a gothic novel.
“For Melancholy Brunettes” follows a transformative period in Zauner’s life during which her 2x GRAMMY nominated breakthrough album “Jubilee” and her bestselling memoir “Crying In H Mart” catapulted her into the cultural mainstream, delivering on her deepest artistic ambitions. Reflecting on that success, Zauner came to appreciate the irony of desire, which so often commingles bliss and doom. “I felt seduced by getting what I always wanted,” she says. “I was flying too close to the sun, and I realized if I kept going I was going to die.”
The plight of Icarus and other such condemned ones lends “For Melancholy Brunettes” its most persistent theme, the perils of desire. Like light dispersed, its spectral parts take the album’s characters through cycles of temptation, transgression and retribution. On “Orlando in Love” — a riff on John Cheever’s riff on Orlando Innamorato, an unfinished epic made up of 68 ½ cantos by the Renaissance poet Matteo Maria Boiardo — the hero is a well meaning poet who parks his Winnebago by the sea and falls victim to a siren’s call, his 69th canto (even in the lofty realm of classical myth Zauner has a soft spot for innuendo). “Honey Water” plumbs the quiet rage of a woman married to an unfaithful man, watching him cede again and again to lust like a base insect perpetuating its own demise.
Sadness is indeed the dominant emotional key of this record, but it is sadness of a rarefied form: the pensive, prescient sadness of melancholy, in which the recognition of life’s essentially tragic character occurs with sensitivity to its fleeting beauty. Zauner finds space enough inside it for glimmers of hope. They are the consolations of mortals that poets before her have called out to and that poets after will continue to rediscover: love and labor, and though they run like tonic resolutions through the record’s many episodes, they sound most saliently on its final song, “Magic Mountain,” an engagement with Thomas Mann’s famous novel of the same name. For her, making any work feels like scaling a mountain, but from the perch of “For Melancholy Brunettes”, she surveys the future.
The Fat Angel Sings 